


Into Temptation

by the-reylo-void (Anysia)



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Angst, Dark, F/M, Force Bond (Star Wars), It's "The Temptation of Christ" with Reylo, Psychological Warfare, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Rey and Kylo are both deeply stubborn people okay, Seduction to the Dark Side, Seduction to the Light Side, See you in hell kids, Slow Burn, kind of, not quite
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-05
Updated: 2016-07-03
Packaged: 2018-07-12 07:48:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7093012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anysia/pseuds/the-reylo-void
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me." </p><p>In the deserts of Tatooine, Rey once more meets with Kylo Ren, and the temptations he brings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The is the end result of way too many theological discussions within the Tumblr Reylo community (...okay, there was, like, one, but it was REALLY good). With canon already alluding to Rey being tempted, and my ticket to hell already punched many, many times over, I figured it was a good time for a Reylo take on The Temptation of Christ. If reinterpretation of religious allegory sets your teeth on edge, do me a favor and pass on this one. 
> 
> This was intended to be a one-shot but got away from me — expect it to have four, maybe five parts total at the outset. The rating is for those later parts, and to be on the safe side. 
> 
> With all that said, please enjoy!

Tatooine is familiar, in that odd way that unpleasant things can be, and Rey squints through the cockpit viewport as she pilots the Falcon down.

 

"Storm's coming," she murmurs, as sand rises up, whips around them. “I can’t see much of anything.”

 

"Not much to see," Luke says from behind her. "I used to live here, you know."

 

There's a pause, something deep and somber, and Rey can feel the weight of his gaze at the back of the pilot's chair, the absence of a presence within it.

 

They do not speak again.

 

**\---**

 

The Resistance base is still half-constructed, domed roofs rising up from dusty baked earth. The twin suns are at high noon, fire-hot against the exposed back of Rey’s neck, and she's never been here but it feels like home, somehow.

 

The General awaits them at the docking bay, her hair severely bound. She does not rush to embrace her brother, as Rey thinks she might. Instead, her lips are set tight as she stares, unflinching.

 

For the first time since Rey has met him (though little time, all told), Luke looks abashed. “Leia,” he starts, softly, as he steps forward.

 

She inclines her head a regal fraction, eyes hard and battle-weary, and Rey watches from the ramp as her Master falls silent.

 

“Whatever you’re about to say,” Leia says, and her voice is thick with old pain, “it won’t be enough.”

 

 Luke is quiet for a half-heartbeat too long. “I know,” he says at last.

 

Leia nods, closes her eyes, and her breath is shaky on the inhale. “…it was Ben. When Han…”

 

“Yes,” Luke says quietly, and it was Rey who saw it ( _lightsaber piercing and Chewbacca’s roar that seems to overpower even her own desperate scream and gods he’d been kind to her, so kind, **like the father you never had,** the father **he had just torn apart** …) _but she clutches her hands together and hugs close to the Falcon as Leia, finally away from appraising eyes, from scrutiny, from the heavy weight and expectations of the General, allows herself to weep in her brother’s waiting arms.

 

Rey’s heart hurts to see it. She moves silently from the hangar, glad for the steadying weight of her staff against her back as she makes her way to the edge of the base.

 

She garners few glances from the skeleton crew manning the hangars — there is much work to be done following the frenzied evacuation from D’Qar, and little time for curious stares at Luke Skywalker’s new apprentice ( _though **not yet** , he’d said, eyes clouded with some dark, distant memory. **Not after… You will find yourself tempted, Rey. Pray you don’t follow my nephew’s footsteps when you do** )._

 

The storm is calming, sheets of wind-whipped orange-yellow sand settling into rolling dunes. Rey pulls her staff from her shoulders, rests against it as she stares out to the horizon.

 

She misses Jakku.

 

It’s an unpleasant realization, deep in her belly, a dull jolt against her bones.

 

But Jakku was home.

 

It was hunger, heat, loneliness, despair, pain.

 

But it was _hers_ , in the end. She knew its dangers, its few rewards. She knew how to stay surefooted around the sinking fields, could speak the half-dozen tongues of its seedy traders, could navigate the rusted durasteel spines of its junkyards by touch and memory alone.

 

And… it was easy, in its own way. Life had a familiar rhythm, a _purpose._ Wake. Scavenge. Trade. Eat. Hope. Sleep. Again. Again and again.

 

Now… now there is the _Force_ , destiny and a greater purpose, and Master Luke’s quiet pain and Leia’s _loss_ and Finn’s laughing eyes and the _Resistance_ and the weight of a lightsaber in her hand as though it belonged there…

 

…and there are shadows, somewhere deep in the coldness of space, and she swears she can almost _feel_ him in her bones, her blood, all smoldering rage and darkness and _fear_ …

 

**_Rey._ **

She starts, glancing behind her at the sound of her name, but there is no one.

 

The wind, then, she thinks, uneasily hefting her staff in her hands and gazing out to the desert. It’s a cruel thing, a desert wind — how often, when she was little, so little, had she slept curled up tight and imagined her mother’s voice carried on it as it whistled sharp through the junkyards?

 

Too often. Far, far too often, when she was young and her hope was still bright.

 

**_Rey._ **

****

Stronger now, a harsh, insistent whisper, and there’s a fine tremor in her hands as she slings her staff back over her chest.

 

She does not recognize the whisper.

 

But she does recognize the chill in her blood, the faint pulse of darkness, the curl of ice down her spine.

 

It calls from the desert.

 

**_He_** calls.

 

**_You will be tempted._ **

****

She thinks of his mother’s tears, of his father _falling_ **,** of the darkness pulsing hot and ugly in her veins as she stood over him, her shoulders heaving, his face bloodied, and _you’re afraid – that you will never be as strong as **me**._

**_Rey._ **

 

She feels it, then, a caress at the edge of her consciousness, cold leather, a scalding burn, a twisting smirk.

 

_You’re here,_ she thinks.

 

He does not confirm, but she feels his touch, stroking lazily over her mind, and it’s almost sweet, almost gentle, but in his hands gentleness is grotesque, profane.

 

Rey twists her hands into her hair, grasping tight and gritting her teeth.

 

_Get. Out. Of. My Head._

The touch at her mind recedes, only to be replaced by a gentle pull, and she feels it draw her towards the horizon, towards the rolling dunes of the Tatooine desert.

 

**_Find me,_** Kylo Ren says. **_I will give you what you seek._**

 

And he is gone.

 

Rey is shaking, wrenching her hands from her scalp and breathing hard.

 

_What is it you think I **seek**? _ she bites. She takes a step forward without noticing.

 

He does not answer.

 

Rey steadies her breathing, and her hand brushes the lightsaber clipped to her belt. The one Luke had refused to reclaim.

 

**_It called to you,_** he had said, eyeing her with stark appraisal before folding the saber into her outreached hand. **_It’s yours._**

 

Her staff is heavy against her back, comfortably so. She is well-armed.

 

Before she realizes what she has done, her feet have carried her to a nearby nest of canteens, heavy with water. She slings two over her shoulder before caution can catch her, still her motion.

 

**_Find me._ **

****

It’s a trap, she knows. She can feel him, sharper now that she seeks him. He lies in wait like a coiled serpent, impatient, poised to strike.

 

_I’ll not let you hurt Luke,_ she thinks, tastes his serpent’s venom on her tongue and spits it back at him.

 

Silence, heavy and dark.

 

Then:

 

**_It’s not him I want._ **

****

The suns are hot against her back but her blood runs cold as she scales the wall at the base’s edge, drops lightly to the sand at the other side.

 

_You’re alone?_

**_I am._ **

****

_Why?_ She pushes the word at him with all her strength as she sets her shoulders and moves across the sand.

 

So familiar, once.

 

So frightening now.

 

**_You will find yourself tempted, Rey._ **

 

**_Pray you don’t follow my nephew’s footsteps when you do._ **

****

There is no answer to her question, just the blazing sun across her shoulders, the shifting sands beneath her feet, and the rolling darkness waiting for her beyond the horizon.

 

****


	2. Hunger

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my God, this is so much later than I intended it to be. Real life drama and massive writer's block will do that. 
> 
> Thank you all SO MUCH for the amazing comments and kudos. I'm still deeply intimidated by this fandom, so the positive response has helped ease some of my fic anxiety. 
> 
> Hope you all enjoy this one -- hopefully I'll have the next chapter out in much quicker fashion!

Rey is determined as she trudges her way through the thick desert sands, mouth set in a tight line.

 

It feels good to have sand beneath her boots. _Right,_ somehow, as she shifts her weight and moves fleet-footed across the dunes. Tatooine is different from Jakku, rockier, without the ghosts of battles past buried hull-deep in its sands, but there are still small skittering things and an arid wind rising up dusty and hot across her back.

 

Rey bites hard against the inside of her lip. She’s left Jakku behind for something greater, a purpose, a fight for the fate of the galaxy.

 

 _Look forward,_ she tells herself, and there’s an answering ripple in the Force that seems to agree.

 

But _forward,_ at least today…

 

Her hand curls around the lightsaber at her hip as her boots dig into the soft sands.

 

Kylo Ren. He’d claimed to be alone, and she had sensed no duplicity on his part, but why had he sought her out? Three months’ time since their frenzied duel on Starkiller, far less since she’d learned the bare-bones story of his fall from grace ( _Luke, somber-faced and distant-eyed, wrenching the tale deep from where it still ached and quietly recounting the names of the dead)_ , and she’d have guessed him the sort to return with reinforcements at their next reckoning.

 

But he was alone, here, some miles from the construction grounds of the new Resistance base, and claiming to seek only her.

 

 _I’m **nobody** , _she thinks viciously in his direction. It’s a strange and unsettling thing, how sometimes she _feels_ him, hears him, like an itch buried deep in her skin she can never fully scratch.

 

She feels him laugh, and it’s a terrible sound. _Hardly._

 

**_I will kill you when I find you._ **

****

_You won’t._ He sounds so smug, so self-assured that she quickens her pace, follows the thread of his Force signature, in the hopes of leveling her staff at his face. _Making slow progress, aren’t you. I thought you were from a desert planet._

**_Jakku only has one sun, unlike this godforsaken rock._ **

****

_A Jakku girl mocking another planet’s isolation. Quaint._

Rey shoots an epithet in his direction before slamming down every mental wall she can conjure. It’s not her forte, not yet, but it’ll hold for now.

 

The twin suns of Tatooine climb higher as she continues to make her way through the desert, to the serpent lying in wait somewhere within its rolling sands.

 

\---

 

It’s been hours, or feels like it, and Rey feels the pull of exhaustion through her legs, her shoulders.

 

It reminds her of when she was younger, before she’d built her speeder, when she was so much smaller and had to haul her nets of cargo overland. The desert sun was brutal, unforgiving, and the previous day’s portions provided just enough sustenance for her to make it to Niima Outpost before she collapsed.

 

(On the good days, someone might take pity on her, offer her a speeder ride or an extra quarter-portion. On the bad days, she fainted in the dunes, forced herself awake and dragged herself on hands and knees back to her AT-AT with just enough portions to survive to tomorrow.)

 

She’s tired, in a way that’s unfamiliar to her. It’s a relief when the shifting sands give way to craggy rock, all sloping canyons and rough-edged cliffs. It’s easier to gain her footing here, smooth pathways cut into rocky formations, and Rey rests a moment, takes a long swig from one of the canteens looped around her shoulder.

 

There’s a sharp pulse through the Force then, harsh and seizing, and a scream catches in Rey’s throat as the canteen in her hand whips away to crash hard against the rock behind her.

 

Water is precious, here as on Jakku, and her face twists in horror to see the thick stream of water gushing into the sand. _Nononono…!_ She’s desperate, on her knees, catching the canteen upright and trying to catch the last few drops even as the Force pulses again and she _knows…_

She hears a lightsaber ignite behind her, and she stands, swiftly reaches for the one at her hip, canteen falling forgotten…

 

...she only makes it to a half-turn, doesn’t even thumb the ignition switch before she’s frozen in place. She struggles, bites against it, searches feverishly through the Force to find the release, but he holds her fast.

 

A long, dark shadow falls over her, and Rey forces herself to keep her eyes open.

 

Kylo Ren is masked and hooded, seeming even larger than before, towering over her with lightsaber in hand.

 

“You came,” he says, voice deepened and distorted though the mask’s vocalizer, and he tilts his head, as if in curiosity.

 

“You _asked_ me to,” she grinds out, still struggling against the Force hold and burning her hatred into him with her eyes.

 

He makes a noise somewhere between a laugh and a scoff. “And by what right would you do as I asked? _Scavenger._ ”

 

Rey spits at his feet. He doesn’t flinch.

 

“I have a name, you know,” she says, and her words drip with disdain. “You’d little trouble recalling it when you beckoned me earlier.”

 

“Would you prefer I use it?”

 

“I’d _prefer_ you let me _go,_ stay out of my head and retreat to the farthest galaxy away from me _at all times._ ”

 

“Hm.” He switches off his lightsaber, keeping it in hand as he walks a slow circle around her. “You’ve changed.”

 

“Have I? You seem as monstrous as before.”

 

He hovers one hand by her temple, and Rey flinches as he tilts his head, as she feels the brush of him at the edge of her consciousness. “More powerful,” he murmurs. “Excellent. Despite the source of your training.”

 

“What are you on about? You’re ill-dressed for the desert, you know.”

 

His mask fills her vision, too close, and her breath catches in her throat. “We’d best continue this conversation elsewhere. _Rey._ ”

 

She vainly tries to push back one last time, but darkness fills her vision. She’s dimly aware of his arms going around her as she falls.

 

\---

 

Rey’s head is pounding as she slowly opens her eyes. The air is oddly damp, a slow drip of water echoing off rock.

 

She remembers in a rush: _desert Tatooine water **Kylo Ren** Force…_

Rey bolts upright, clutching a hand to her head as she frantically searches for her staff, her saber…

 

Kylo Ren is seated on a rock across from her, hands on his knees, her weapons tossed carelessly behind him.

 

“Still trying to kill me, I see,” he says, and she can hear the smirk beneath his mask.

 

Her eyes flash with rage, and she bares her teeth, extends one hand to _pull…_

 

“I wouldn’t,” Kylo says lightly. “Kill me now and you’ll never know what I came for.”

 

“I don’t _care_ what you’ve come for,” Rey snarls, and Kylo moves to one side, anticipating as she Force pulls the saber into her waiting hand and _ignites_ …

 

Kylo doesn’t move, doesn’t ignite his own saber, and Rey stares at him.

 

“You won’t kill me,” he says, and the voice beneath the mask is dispassionate. “You’re too close to the darkness already. An untenable thing for you, for now. ”

 

Rey falters as the words seem to rattle against her bones, and there’s a voice coaxing her, gently, so gently, _strike him down, Rey. It’s so easy, so **easy** to be rid of him once and for all, to gain his power for your own…_

She closes her eyes and shudders against it. “I’ll never fall to the darkness like you did,” she says, teeth grit hard. “I’d never hurt and maim and kill _like you do_.”

 

A beat, a pause, and Kylo raises his hands to his mask, engages the releases and gently sets it to one side.

 

Rey’s voice dies in her throat as she gazes, horrified, at the thick scar burned diagonally into Kylo’s face, scoring across his right eye and cheek in a wide, jagged line.

 

“You’re too close to the darkness already,” he repeats, voice softer without the mask.

 

Rey’s eyes do not move from his scar as she switches off the lightsaber with unsteady hands before slowly lowing herself down to a sloping boulder opposite him. She warily scans her surroundings, acutely aware of Kylo’s eyes on her as she takes in the deep, echoing cave.

 

“At least it’s a bit cooler in here,” she observes, hesitantly crossing her arms over her chest and leveling a glare at Kylo.

 

“The man I was named for often used this cave to meditate during his exile. Or so I was once told.”

 

A flash, a man with kind, sad eyes and graying hair clad in fraying robes. Rey squints into the shifting shadows at the cave’s edge, and she can almost _see_ …

 

A push at the edge of her thoughts, a gloved hand flipping through her memories as easily as holovids, and Rey whips back to face Kylo and _shoves_ at him. “ _Stop_ that,” she bites. “ _Now._ ”

 

Kylo stares at her, appraising, biting his lip. “I was curious to see what Skywalker had taught you thus far. Very little, it seems. Certainly not how to protect your thoughts.”

 

“You’re the only person who refuses to _stay out of them._ ”

 

“You’re very poor at concealing them. Your thoughts and emotions are like a beacon, to the right person. Blinding. Hard to ignore.”

 

“’The right person’. Meaning _you?_ ”

 

Kylo shrugs, settling his hands back on his knees. His eyes are dark as they catch hers in the low cave light. “I could teach you. To control it.”

 

“I don’t need your help.”

 

He smiles, just a hint of a smirk at his lips. “We’ll see.”

 

Rey leans back against the rock wall behind her, pulls her knees to her chest and gazes at Kylo over them. “That’s why you’ve come, isn’t it. To drag me into hell with you, make me your pupil.”

 

“Skywalker can’t teach you half of what I can,” Kylo says darkly, and his eyes burn into hers. “What the darkness can.”

 

“The darkness could teach me to become what _you_ are. Twisted. Evil. Cruel. The kind of _creature_ who would kill the man who…”

 

The words stick in her throat as Han’s face flashes through her memory, hand outstretched to caress his fallen son’s cheek as a flickering red blade protrudes through his chest…

 

“ _Stop_.”

 

Rey whips to meet Kylo’s gaze, dark and insistent, gloved hands fisted tightly around his knees, and he radiates malice.

 

Rey narrows her eyes and pushes the visual at him, doubled, tripled, the screams, the _agony_ …

 

Kylo raises one hand and pushes back at her and Rey falls back, feeling hunger slice through her bones, twisting her stomach, the deep, empty pulse she’d fought through the years, _desperate,_ clawing her way through fallen starships with bleeding fingers and coming up _empty_ …

 

Rey draws a sharp breath and cuts through Kylo’s mind, dives and _scavenges_ and finds a thread, plucks it and finds him glaring at Hux in harshly-lit meeting rooms, destroying a console as he radiates frustration, feels the waves of self-loathing and wounded pride as he lies in the snow, face aching, _burning,_ and _you will never be as strong as_ and oh, she was _right_ wasn’t she, and he bows his head in supplication as he _hungers_ for greatness, for _strength…_

 

They’re both breathing hard, eyes dark as they release, staring unblinking at the other.

 

“Not big on fighting fair, are you,” Rey manages, pressing one shaky hand to her side, half-expecting to feel the hard, sharp ridges she’d grown so accustomed to on Jakku.

 

 “…you should _talk_ ,” Kylo spits at her, trembling with rage. “Vile desert rat.”

 

“Looks like I don’t need you to _teach_ me anything.” Rey’s lips quirk into an acerbic smile, and she rises to her feet, watches as Kylo rests his forearms against his knees, head bowed.

 

When he raises his eyes to meet hers, she’s jolted by the dark amusement within their depths.

 

“You’re so close,” he murmurs. “You don’t even realize how close you are to the darkness. It’s just a matter of time, Rey.”

 

He stands, raises himself to his full height, and his gloved hand is curved around her cheek before she can even reach for her lightsaber.

 

“You’re hungry,” he says softly, tilting her head up to meet his gaze. “You _want_ the power of the Force. You want to know it, to master it.”

 

Another push through her thoughts, and his eyes blaze with realization.

 

“…Skywalker has refused to train you,” Kylo says, staring down at her. “You call him _Master Luke_ , your thoughts hum with it, but he refused you.”

 

Rey closes her eyes even as Kylo’s gaze burns through her, and she tries to hold them back but her thoughts return to **_I’m old, Rey. Too old to see everything fall to ruin again. You’ll need to be careful – the Dark Side already calls to you, the way it did with…_**

****

Kylo is close, too close as he withdraws from her thoughts. “You’d never want with me,” he says, lips by her ear. “I can teach you, all of it. Everything. You’d never go hungry again.”

 

Rey grits her teeth. “I’ll never join you,” she says, but it lacks her usual venom. She feels caged by the sheer _size_ of him, so close, and he hasn’t Force-stunned her but she can’t seem to move.

 

“Have Skywalker teach you to make bread from stones, then. Watch as you funnel your power into meditation after meditation as the galaxy collapses around you and he tells you to _be patient with it._ ” Kylo’s voice drips with old bitterness, and he’s close enough that Rey feels the rumble of disdain through his chest.

 

“Master Luke is a good man. He told me about you. Who you _were._ ”

 

 _…Ben Solo._ She pushes the name at him, and he pulls back as if burned, eyes wide and teeth bared.

 

“You overstep your bounds, _scavenger,_ ” he spits.

 

He’s weakened, retreating, and Rey steels herself and stares him down.

 

“I can survive hunger,” she says, voice tight as she pulls her lightsaber back to her hand, “far better than you can, _Kylo Ren_.”

 

She ignites the humming blue blade, turns, steps, and knows his blade will meet hers even before it does.

 

Red crashes into blue, and oh, how they had _both_ hungered for this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...the slow burn is VERY slow with these two. Some people can write Kylo and Rey being romantic. I write them wanting to kill each other (for awhile, anyway).


	3. Fall

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all again from the bottom of my heart for the overwhelming feedback. I'm still over the moon that anyone is actually reading this thing! Seriously, 100+ kudos? You guys are amazing. Thank you. ♥
> 
> (The slow burn is burning a little hotter this time around. Watch your step, Rey.)

Rey is a fast learner.

 

This is not skill – this is necessity. The deserts of Jakku are neither patient nor kind. Rey’s skin is mottled with old scars from young, impetuous hands burned on sun-baked sheet metal and jagged shards of transparisteel.

 

Pain, she knows, is a fast teacher.

 

And Kylo Ren is its most adept pupil.

 

They lock into position, slot together, blue screaming harsh against jagged red as though they’ve done this a hundred times before. Kylo is harsh, heavy-handed, with wide, sweeping strokes that leave her stumbling back (Force, his _reach_ ) as Rey moves her saber to a defensive position across her chest.

 

It’s easy, fluid, the way they fight. Rey mirrors Kylo’s twirls and strikes, slips and dodges from his grasp as they burst from the cave mouth into the fading sunlight.

 

“I’ve missed this,” Kylo says, and there’s a predatory glint in his eyes as he circles her.

 

_I’ve missed you,_ she hears, a faint whisper at the back of her mind, and Rey grits her teeth and _strikes_.

 

It’s so much easier than the first time, when she’d moved awkward and sluggish through the snow and struggled to parry his disarming strikes, trembled at the look of death in his eyes. Now, she feels the Force thrumming through her blood, feels herself _open_ , and she plucks his moves from his mind as easily as breathing, chains them together and throws them back at him.

 

Feint. _Move._ Strike. Down. _Fall back._

 

They’ve climbed to the top of a nearby ridge when she notes the smirk curling at Kylo’s lips, notes the way his strikes don’t quite follow through, how they crash hard against her lightsaber without ever reaching _her…_

 

“You’re not _trying_ ,” Rey bites. She clashes, holds, and their sabers crackle between them.

 

There’s a light sheen of sweat on his forehead, hair disheveled in the arid desert wind, but there’s dark mirth in his eyes.

 

“I don’t want to hurt you,” Kylo says, leaning as close to her as their joined sabers will allow.

 

“You’ve already _hurt me._ ” She throws the images at him hard and fast, the interrogation and Finn and _Han…_

 

He bares his teeth, sharp, predatory. “I don’t want to _kill_ you,” he amends. “You’re no use to me dead.”

 

Rey pushes, disengages, falls back and stares at him over the glow of her saber, breathing hard. There’s darkness pulsing hot in her blood, and he may not want to kill her but oh, how she wants to _hurt_ him, wants to watch him bleed and cry out and suffer for _everything he’s done_ …

 

She slows her breathing, closes her eyes and seeks the calming edge of light at the back of her mind, drinks it deep. Steady. Steady.

 

“I’ll never be _any_ use to you.” Her voice is calm when she speaks, eyes open. “Ever.”

 

Kylo is silent for a moment, appraising her, and the hair rises at the back of her neck as his eyes darken.

 

“When will you realize how _valuable_ you are, Rey?” he grinds out, slashing the air in front of him, and she feels the grazing heat of his saber. “You’re _worth more than this._ You could _be_ so much more.”

 

He _attacks_ then, pulling his weight into the downward strike, and she feels the force of his rage and frustration as she parries, barely holds her balance.

 

“You could command armies,” Kylo insists, dark eyes wild. “You could have men _worship_ you.”

 

Rey winces at the strength behind his strikes, and it’s all she can do to keep the saber in her hands as he forces her back, back, _back…_

 

“Skywalker _refused_ you.” Another strike, eyes blazing. “He was _afraid_ of you. Of your darkness. Of _what you could become_.”

 

Sand growing thinner, sparser, giving way to uneven rock as she rushes back and he keeps advancing…

 

Kylo is a terrifying sight in the orange-red glow of Tatooine’s suns, eyes obsidian-black, scar livid against his pale skin, saber gripped tightly in both gloved hands, and oh, how he’d underestimated Rey in their first meeting but now she wonders if she’s underestimated _him…_

 

“I’ve been gracious, Rey,” he says. He’s breathing hard, shoulders heaving. His eyes do not stray from her face. “I’ve come alone. Twice I’ve offered to teach you.” He closes his eyes for half a heartbeat, and Rey feels the caress of his mind against hers. “I frighten you. I feel it. But there are far more dangerous enemies, Rey, and _you can’t defeat them._ Not now, not like this.”

 

“I’ll learn,” Rey bites back. “Master Luke will teach me. He wouldn’t have hesitated if it weren’t for _you_.”

 

“Skywalker won’t save you.” Kylo takes a step forward, bearing down on her. “The Light won’t catch you when you fall.”

 

It’s a blur of movement: Kylo advancing, Rey pulling back, moving defensively, pouring the Force into it but it’s _too far, too much…_

 

_…_ and then there’s nothing beneath her feet and she’s falling down, _down…_

_\---_

They say one’s life comes in flashes when they die, a rapid-fire slideshow of triumph, loss, wants, fears, everything rushing together in the half-heartbeat before the thread is cut.

 

Rey thinks of home, of Jakku, of a family she can’t remember, of Finn and the Force and how she will never go home and where _is_ home where does she belong _poor orphaned girl_ and _who will catch you when you fall_ and she’d _left_ but still it ends with her bones scattered and sunk into the desert sands and why did she leave why did she _leave…_

It’s all a tumbling rush of regrets, and it takes a moment for another thought to come screaming through to the front of her consciousness.

 

_We’ve stopped falling._

Rey sucks in a sharp breath, blinks hard and shakes as she _hovers_ , suspended in mid-air.

 

There’s a dark shadow on the ridge above her, ten meters at most, a dark-robed man stretching out one arm.

 

“Don’t you dare drop that saber, girl,” Kylo’s voice booms against the rough rock walls of the ravine, and it brings her back to herself, to the present.

 

Rey glances to her trembling hand, fingers still wrapped tightly around the hilt of the lit saber. She watches as the ignition switches off, blade dimming seemingly of its own accord.

 

Her heart is beating a hard, fast rhythm in her chest as she unconsciously notes the considerable distance between her and the bottom of the ravine.

 

“Don’t look _down_ , for kriff’s sake.”

 

Rey bites back an epithet as she shoots a glare up at Kylo. His eyes are intense, frenzied, and he’s balanced precariously on the edge of the cliff.

 

“Then you step _back_! We’ll be far worse off if _you_ fall, too!”

 

He says nothing, his eyes boring down into hers, and she feels the pulse of something through their bond, the thrum of emotion, the tenseness threaded through him.

 

…he’d saved her, she realizes, belatedly.

 

Why had he _saved_ her?

 

Rey pulls her gaze from his but still feels it burn into her skin. “Are you going to pull me up, then? We’re not _finished._ ”

 

Kylo is still silent, and his emotions are stabbing through her even as she tries to push them aside, _damn fool girl **don’t** too close, far too close don’t do that to… _

 

“…you should know how to do this,” he says finally. “A Force pull isn’t beyond your capabilities. I’ve seen it.”

 

“No one has _taught_ me,” Rey grinds out.

 

Kylo shoots her a flat glare from above but mercifully remains silent.

 

Rey glances to the rocky side of the ravine, just barely out of reach, and she stretches, _tries…_

 

An irritated sigh from above her. “Here,” she hears. “ _Feel_.”

 

She feels his consciousness brush against hers, twine with it, and she jolts with fear, _kicks,_ but he holds her steady. The tendrils of the Force wrap tightly around her, and she _feels_ it, filling her, the Light rushing through her veins alongside the murmur of Kylo’s Darkness.

 

_That’s it,_ his voice is close, coaxing, and she can almost _feel_ him beside her, around her, as her hands reach, grasp, _claw…_

 

Rey exhales sharply as her fingertips catch on a rocky ridge, arms burning to support her weight as her feet scrabble for purchase.

 

Kylo is silent above her, but she feels the clutch of his Force pull begin to fade from her limbs as she climbs, slowly. Her fingers scrabble for purchase against the rough rock. It’s craggy and uneven, so unfamiliar, so unlike the rusting starships whose spines she can climb over as easy as breathing.

 

_This is not Jakku_ , Rey reminds herself, breathing hard as she slowly pulls herself a fraction higher. _This is not home_.

 

She’s not sure she has one anymore.

 

She slips, just a little, and hears a sharp, irritated intake of breath above her even as she twists one foot and arrests her fall.

 

“Watch yourself, girl,” she hears, and Kylo’s voice is a low, disdainful rumble even as she feels the ghost of a supporting hand at her shoulder, the small of her back. “I’m not inclined to save you a second time.”

 

Rey huffs in irritation. “’Save me’. Rather rich when you’re the reason I fell in the first place.”

 

“I didn’t push you off the ridge.”

 

“You didn’t exactly _warn_ me.”

 

She sees him shrug, unconcerned, and rolls her eyes.

 

It’s quiet as she continues her climb, only the whisper of wind and the shriek of something hunting far off in the distance.

 

When she reaches the top of the ridge, dark gloved hands clasp hard around her wrists and pull her over. Kylo moves away at the same moment she pulls hard from his grasp.

 

He’s pale, haggard-looking, but his eyes are calm as they appraise her. His lightsaber is extinguished and clipped to his belt.

 

Rey’s eyes are harder than she feels as she holsters her own saber. “I suppose I should thank you,” she says, avoiding his gaze.

 

Kylo shrugs, crosses his arms over his chest and looks out to the horizon. “I’d say ‘you’d do the same for me,’ but we both know you wouldn’t.”

 

Rey doesn’t bother to correct him. She stands next to him, as close as she dares, a few meters off.

 

“Are you heading back to the First Order, then?” she asks after a moment.

 

“Not quite yet.” Kylo glances to her, and there’s that damned smirk of his again. “I’m enjoying your company.”

 

Rey rolls her eyes in disgust. “I’ve had quite enough of yours.”

 

“Not the politest thing to say to a man who just saved your life.”

 

“You didn’t have to.”

 

She feels his gaze on her, almost a physical thing, sloping down the curve of her shoulder, her hip, back to her face.

 

“No,” Kylo says, and there’s something dark and heavy in his voice. “I didn’t.”

 

Rey turns from him, struggles not to wrap her arms protectively around herself. She recalls his words from earlier — _you’re no use to me dead_ — but… there’s something _more_ to it. She felt it in the hot rush of emotion swirling through her, around him. Feels it now.

 

It’s too much to consider. Far too much.

 

She closes her eyes and slams down her mental walls, willing him out.

 

If Kylo notices, he doesn’t show it.

 

“…I remember coming here in my youth,” he says quietly, still staring towards the strip of red-orange curling along the horizon, the dying Tatooine sunset.

 

“With your family?” Rey asks.

 

He doesn’t answer. She tentatively brushes against the edge of his mind, and her eyes widen at the ironclad barriers she finds.

 

“We all have our secrets, scavenger,” he says, and his eyes meet hers, dark and purposeful.

 

Rey swallows hard, takes a step back.

 

Kylo eyes her carefully before sighing and turning away from the horizon. “I suppose we’ll have more than enough time to talk about it before morning,” he says. His footsteps are heavy as he walks past her.

 

Rey stares after him for a long moment, eyes widening as his words register. “’Morning’? I’m _sorry_?”

 

“Surely you’re not foolish enough to traverse the desert after nightfall,” Kylo calls dismissively over his shoulder.

 

“…I am _not_ spending the night with you!”

 

Kylo stops and turns to face her. There’s a slow, mocking smile curling at the corners of his lips.

 

“Don’t flatter yourself, scavenger,” he says. His eyes scan her body, slowly, before he chuckles low in his chest. “I assure you, my tastes tend towards women of greater substance. You have nothing to worry about.”

 

Force, that _smirk_ of his, the mocking laughter in his eyes, the dismissive look he shoots her, and Rey narrows her eyes, grits her teeth and swiftly extends one hand.

 

It’s _immensely_ satisfying to see the humor disappear from Kylo’s eyes as he falls back and lands hard on his backside in the rocky sand, coughing as the impact knocks the breath from his lungs.

 

Rey can barely contain her laughter at the look he gives her, utterly _indignant_ in his long black robes, looking for all the world like a spoiled prince who’d lost a childish spat in a sandbox.

 

Served him right, the insufferable git.

 

She walks past him and feels his eyes stroke over her once more, and his feelings push past her barriers, just enough for her to feel…

 

_Far, far greater substance,_ he murmurs.

 

There’s a rush of something hot in her blood, the feel of crawling insects against her skin. Kylo doesn’t move.

 

Rey ducks her head and walks back to the cave as quickly as her legs will carry her.

 

She feels his eyes follow her every step, as she realizes her strides match the sweeping lines of his bootprints in the sand.

 

**_Pray you don’t follow my nephew’s footsteps, Rey_**.

 

She walks faster.


End file.
